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the moral of the story here is....grown adults really shouldnt be ordering well done steaks. just order a burger or something else instead.

Huge +1 I couldn't agree more...

The main thing that bugs me is the whole process... The farmer raises the cow, it gets slaughtered broken down, packaged, distributed..further meat fab is done . All of that work just for someone to want it completely destroyed and cooked past any degree of tenderness and moisture. A very high quality and also quite intimidating chef once scalded anyone mishandling meat, " that animal died for you...Don't #%## it! " he would say. A men

called Texas fondue. They actually have catering companies that will go around with big oil drum fryers and folks get to cook their steaks by dipping them in the oil with a pitch fork until they deem them done. If done properly you get a well seared steak that is quite juicy. I personally let anyone who orders a well done Filet Mignon wait until its done. Could take me a half hour , depending on how polite they are.lol

Restaurant Stella! in New Orleans - which some would consider a very nice restaurant - cooks all their steaks this way. They circulate to whatever temp. and then finish in the deep fryer.

This technique is straight out of Modernist Cuisine. Just a quick way to form a crust....what's wrong with that? Well, that putting it on a hardwood-fired grill wouldn't fix

For me, a few things are wrong with it. I'm a little ignorant and old fashioned - so take that into account - but from the perspective of a line cook, working a 'station' where you drop proteins into different circulators, cut a bag & then throw it into a deep fryer is everything I don't want to be doing. Sounds like my version of hell and not the type of kitchen I want to be working in.

I also don't like circulated steaks. I don't like cooking them (the first place I learned to cook steaks at were all circulated, not a fan of temping sous vide meat) and I'd much rather eat a piece of steak cooked from the raw. I feel that it changes the texture from spending that time in the water.

And as far as deep frying - it's the same way I prefer fried chicken done in a cast iron. There is something to be said for the direct surface contact to the heat. You could circulate a steak with whatever butter, aromatics etc to the perfect temp and throw it in the fryer for a crust, but at the end of the day, wouldn't you rather a steak perfectly cooked in a pan, basted at the end with all those things?? I know I do

Edit: I think a lot of things that you can do with cryovac & sous vide are awesome, so I'm not trying to sit here and say all things sous vide are bad/shoemaker. But from my own experiences I am not a fan of doing it for steaks. Just my opinion.

I think it also depends on how you do it. Not many restaurants can afford to have multiple circulators set up and have it where you circulate to order and then sear it directly from the water. And I also don't feel that is a quicker way to cook steaks - just more foolproof. Most, like the one I worked at, have it where you circulate all your steaks ahead of time to barely rare and then shock the meat, in order to help with pick up times.

I'm not a food scientist but I don't think you need to be one to understand that taking a (hopefully) beautiful piece of meat, then barely cooking it and quickly cooling it down, just to reheat it again, is drastically different than cooking it straight from raw. I don't want my steak to have been sitting around for hours or even days already cooked.

I get it...partially a, "this is not the job I want" think, and partially a, "not my style" thing.

I'm still trying to figure out what, exactly, I like using SV for in my kitchen. I've done a few "quick steaks" and thought they were good, but missed the spontaneity of just throwing them on the grill/pan. For tougher cuts of meat, it's really fabulous though. I'm still working on it, but it's also really good for certain types of curries (PINK, tender goat!).

Originally Posted by JDA_NC

For me, a few things are wrong with it. I'm a little ignorant and old fashioned - so take that into account - but from the perspective of a line cook, working a 'station' where you drop proteins into different circulators, cut a bag & then throw it into a deep fryer is everything I don't want to be doing. Sounds like my version of hell and not the type of kitchen I want to be working in.

I also don't like circulated steaks. I don't like cooking them (the first place I learned to cook steaks at were all circulated, not a fan of temping sous vide meat) and I'd much rather eat a piece of steak cooked from the raw. I feel that it changes the texture from spending that time in the water.

And as far as deep frying - it's the same way I prefer fried chicken done in a cast iron. There is something to be said for the direct surface contact to the heat. You could circulate a steak with whatever butter, aromatics etc to the perfect temp and throw it in the fryer for a crust, but at the end of the day, wouldn't you rather a steak perfectly cooked in a pan, basted at the end with all those things?? I know I do

Edit: I think a lot of things that you can do with cryovac & sous vide are awesome, so I'm not trying to sit here and say all things sous vide are bad/shoemaker. But from my own experiences I am not a fan of doing it for steaks. Just my opinion.

Originally Posted by JDA_NC

I think it also depends on how you do it. Not many restaurants can afford to have multiple circulators set up and have it where you circulate to order and then sear it directly from the water. And I also don't feel that is a quicker way to cook steaks - just more foolproof. Most, like the one I worked at, have it where you circulate all your steaks ahead of time to barely rare and then shock the meat, in order to help with pick up times.

I'm not a food scientist but I don't think you need to be one to understand that taking a (hopefully) beautiful piece of meat, then barely cooking it and quickly cooling it down, just to reheat it again, is drastically different than cooking it straight from raw. I don't want my steak to have been sitting around for hours or even days already cooked.

The main thing that bugs me is the whole process... The farmer raises the cow, it gets slaughtered broken down, packaged, distributed..further meat fab is done . All of that work just for someone to want it completely destroyed and cooked past any degree of tenderness and moisture. A very high quality and also quite intimidating chef once scalded anyone mishandling meat, " that animal died for you...Don't #%## it! " he would say. A men

Yes, I can't agree more. It kills me to see meat ruined or worse, thrown away, that was part of a living creature. Normal people really seem to take offense when I try to explain that an animal had it's life taken so they can have that piece of meat on their plate, and that they should respect that fact.

A lot of the smarter chefs I know a heavily refining their use of circulators for meat.

I hate nothing more than the horrible set meat paste caused by cooking a piece of pork belly for say twenty hours, but when circulators became more and more commonplace I began to see "fourty hour pork belly" on menus, and that's just kind of gross.

Chefs need to get a lot smarter about how they're used - even if you're only cooking a piece of tenderloin to fifty-two degrees, if you hold it at that temp for long the texture becomes mealy and horrible.

A couple of years back I even heard of a pretty damn good restaurant circulating ALL of their portoined meat EVERY service, and just icing it down between services [shudder].

I like circulators, for many different things, but it took me a few years to get good at using them well. Importantly though, its imperative that young cooks learn how to cook meat well in a pan or on a grill.